Tuesday, February 12, 2013

As Nemo emptied the skies and filled my world with white, I
watched in amazement as my bird feeders got emptied twice a day. Could it be
that I’m the only person in the neighborhood with feeders up, or does my mixture
of cracked peanuts and hulled sunflower seeds really rate just that much better
than any other joint in the neighborhood?

I get all my birdseed from Wild Bird Crossings in the mall
in Bridgehampton because they have great feeders (and have repaired mine for me
for free endlessly) and because they have excellent quality feed. They also do
a frequent buyers clubs which I need since I go through bags and bags of the
stuff, especially this week.

Normally one of my neighbors has her feeders out, but from
the action at my feeders, I think I’m a lone outpost in the snow and as soon as
I can handle slogging through the mess that is my back yard (lots of broken
limbs and destroyed trees that I can not even begin to face) I’ll let you know.
I love feeding the birds, and although I’ve made big strides with planting lots
of edibles for my feathered friends, there is nothing to compare with the
dazzle of 7, yes you count them, 7 adult male cardinals all vying for time and
space at my two front porch feeders. Dancing between the huge flakes blurring my
view from the window, these electric shots of scarlet give me a joy that is
almost not legal. It also makes my cats think they’ve died and gone to heaven.

It’s called Kitty TV, when the windows are so filled with
birds that as a feline you are compelled to let your jaws drop and proceed to
talk/meow compulsively as if any of the human or canine home occupants could
follow along with the Superbowl worthy play by play you are speaking in Cat-oneses.
We had a roaring fire, plenty of reading material, a couple of movies that had
been dropped off on DVD for judging before the Academy Awards still to watch
and I, like my cats, am transfixed by the variety of visitors to my feeders and
their acrobatics.

Goldfinch, Junco, Chickadee, House Finch, Blue Jay,
Starling, Nuthatch, Titmouse, Sparrow, Dove, Flicker, Downy Woodpecker, the
list goes on and on. I also enticed a Sharp Shinned Hawk and a Red Tail but
that’s because the hubbub at my feeders created a raptor calling card that just
could not be ignored. Luckily I didn’t see anyone get eaten, but I did see some
close calls and those big guys are hungry too.

If you’re reading my list and thinking, hmm, she hasn’t
classified the specific sparrows she saw, I want to confess that I am a lapsed
birder.

There was a time when I spent every free moment following my
then boyfriend deep into the woods or the marshes or up stranger’s driveways
with my binoculars and a life list. I’ve been on a pelagic trip to spot
seabirds off the coast of Seattle where every single person on board threw up
except me (which they all attributed to my talking nonstop the entire way out
and back FYI.) I’ve spent hours in the dead of winter with a spotting scope on
the beach estimating ducks be the hundreds with the best of them. I traveled
for a day and a half with a total stranger as he recounted to me the events
that led to his watching his girlfriend get mauled and killed by a bear just so
I could checked off thirteen harder then usual to find species in Western
Washington.

I was hardcore, but now I’m lapsed. I still keep my
binoculars in my car, but I’m no longer an obsessive birder, although my
husband can tell you a funny/hideous story from our last trip to the DR about
going birding with me that involves vultures, burning garbage and a road that
really wasn’t that’ll guarantee you’ll never want to travel with me.

I’m now crazy about plants instead, so I’ve settled into
being a back yard birder and I am no longer obsessing over which LBJ (Little
Brown Job) was that flit of brown out of the corner of my eye. So now when the Boat
tailed Grackles crowd my feeders like a pileup of debutante escorts (although
their pigginess does force me to switch to millet) I’m able to enjoy their
show, and not be concerned with the birds that I’m missing instead. I don’t
keep an official list, but I am excited about a new species showing up in the
yard, and I’ve adopted the rules of bird feeding, I don’t intentional let my
cats out, I’ve said I have planted oodles of plants to help feed and shelter
all my native friends, and I’m fairly good about cleaning my feeders at least
once a month with a solution of one part bleach to 9 parts water.

I like being a backyard birder so much that this weekend I’m
going to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). It’s easy peasy
compared to hanging out at the beach freezing my toes off trying to tell
through frozen eyeballs which Scoter flew by way out past the breakers in the
midst of all that sea mist. I can spend a minimum of just 15 minutes one day
watching at my feeders, or I can participate on all four days and keep a
running tab of each species I see. Then I’ll go online and report my totals at www.BirdCount.org.

The GBBC is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon where
amateur naturalists like myself help scientists help the birds. By having so
many people contribute information from so many different locations over such a
short time period they can learn a great deal about our fluctuating bird
populations. Things like are there migration changes, are populations rising or
falling, are various species ranges changing, is the weather effecting bird
populations or migrations, are there interruptive species this year and more
are all questions my info will help to answer.

I like the idea that from my living room I, and other
armchair naturalists like myself, can help scientists with their pursuits. To
be honest, I’ll probably spend more then 15 minutes doing it, I might even get
a little avianly obsessed again, having already downloaded the special eBirds data
entry app (on sale for only .99 until the last day of the GBBC.) It might be fun
to be carried away again for weekend and it will certainly help me ignore the
damage that this mass of snow has wrought in the back yard.

Paige Patterson has also attracted some mammals with her bird
feeders, not all of which have fluffy tails, much to her husbands dismay.